The Purpose of Porsches

The Porsche is a beautiful thing. Even the most dedicated dialectical materialist feels the tug of capitalism as it drives past. It sums up the things we love in the world: status, art, power, and technology. And perhaps we all have our own Porsche, the one fruit of materialism that makes chasing the Dunya worth it for us. 

Yet Islam is not a dry set of rules and prohibitions, rather a comprehensive and all-consuming way of seeing the world. It doesn’t dictate simply what to avoid, but rather how to make sense of each situation we find ourselves in. And if that is true, then even something like a Porsche cannot be meaningless, it must have its place in our cosmology.

The early believers faced the same tension. They lived in a world obsessed with status, wealth, and visible power. The pull of the Dunya was not in cars but in camels, not in logos but in fine silk. What is striking is that the Quran does not ignore or condemn this sentiment, rather addressing it so directly.

Allah SWT says:

“Beautified for people is the love of desires—women, children, heaps of gold and silver, fine branded horses, cattle, and cultivated land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life, but Allah has with Him the best return.” — Qur'an 3:14

This is not a condemnation of those things, rather a description of them. Allah SWT claims He has beautified them in our eyes, that they are meant to attract, that they are only attractive because He made them attractive to Bani Adam. But the verse doesn’t end there, it immediately redirects the gaze beyond the material realm:

“Say, shall I inform you of something better than that? For those who are mindful of Allah are gardens beneath which rivers flow… purified spouses, and the pleasure of Allah…” — Qur'an 3:15

The structure dictates the framework to use. The Dunya is acknowledged in all its attractiveness, but without denying it, something better is introduced. Not different in kind, but incomprehensibly greater and ever-lasting. The categories are the same: beauty, companionship, comfort, abundance, all that which the Porsches of this world signify, but in that world they are no longer incomplete. The attractiveness of the world proves to mankind that Allah SWT holds the ability to grant them pleasure, yet the pleasures of this world are intrinsically flawed and temporary, and the next are permanent. This pattern is repeated throughout the Quran, the world is never meaningless decoration, it is always charged with significance.

The Quran says:

“We will show them Our signs on the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth…” — Qur'an 41:53

And elsewhere:

“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth… are signs for people who reflect.” — Qur'an 3:190

The keyword here is 'ayaat', signs. The world isn’t merely there, the Porsche isn’t merely for you to want. The beauty, the precision, the power of this world on our hearts, gestures to something beyond itself. The mistake isn’t to feel the pull, it’s to merely stop at the superficial. This is the insight that the work of Al-Ghazali expands on. For him, every component of this world, to the last grain, is in some way a sign of God. The pleasures of this world are samples of the hereafter, they always run out, never give the full experience, but hint enough to make you want the hereafter.

Likewise God created what we call the Observable Universe. It is so large and so vast, with so many millions of stars and thousands of planets around each, that its scale makes man feel insignificant. Yet Allah SWT has told us we are significant. Then what purpose does it serve to make a universe so incredibly more vast than our comprehension? If God can create more stars than people, so too he is capable of providing humanity with all they could possibly want.

Stepping out of the Islamic tradition you see a similar intuition in Plato. He argued that what is seen in the world is an imperfect instance of a more perfect reality. What we call a square is only a drawing on a page, a hint at an actual Square (capital S) that exists somewhere beyond our reach. The object draws you in not because it in itself is complete, but because it reflects something that is.

Our religion has anchored the material world in destiny, that it is all a short prelude to the afterlife. So the Porsche exists to remind you of your innate nature, of what it is man craves, but also to remind you that while the car will rust, He who has created you and what you want, has far greater things in store. The verse doesn’t argue that the material world is worthless, it said ‘there is something better than that’, and that’s what should shape our view of the world.

- Saud Qureshi